Henri Troyat, écrivain

Lev Aslanovitch Tarassoff was born in Moscow on 1 November 1911 to parents of Armenian, Circassian and Georgian heritage. His family was wealthy and he grew up well off until, threatened with death by the Bolshevik political police, his family was forced to flee. He was then six years old.

The Tarassof family undertook a long exodus from Moscow to the Caucasus, then from the Caucasus to the Crimea, and then across the Black Sea to Constantinople, following the defeated White army of General Wrangel. It arrived in Paris in 1920 and its members were granted Nansen status and placed under the protection of the Russian Refugee Office.

In France Lev Tarassoff published his first novel, Faux Jour, in 1935 under the name Henri Troyat. The writer was born. He continued to write and publish novels and biographies, one hundred and four books in all, many of which dealt with relations between Russia and France. He was the youngest winner of the Goncourt Prize, for his novel L'Araigne (The Web) and one of the youngest members of the Académie Française, where he was elected in 1959 at the age of 48. He, who claimed "the singular right to be only a storyteller", is one of the most beloved writers in France.

Invited by the President of the National Assembly to give a speech from the rostrum for the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Troyat said:

If I applied for naturalisation at the age of twenty-two, it was to show my love as a late adoptee to the adopter who had trusted me. So I want to say to refugees from all over the world, some of whom have had to give up everything to save their lives, that exile is not an end in itself. Whatever the tragedy they have suffered...they will find understanding and hospitality in France, provided that they agree to adapt to the spirit and customs of this historical land of asylum.

Henri Troyat died in 2007. He was awarded Grand-Croix de la Légion d’Honneur (Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour), Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Mérite (Commander of the National Order of Merit) and Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (Commander of Arts and Letters).

He recounted his life in Un si long chemin (“So long a road”) (1976, J'ai Lu) and, through fiction, in Le fils du satrape (Son of Satrape) (1998, Le Livre de poche).